Welcome @ecb readers!!! Second thoughts on Mr @jescotet ? pic.twitter.com/t1jWE6aIR1
— Alek Boyd (@alekboyd) April 24, 2015
A visit last week by European Central Bank (ECB) readers to the profile I did on Juan Carlos Escotet took me down a rabit hole. First, repeating the Google search done by the ECB folks led me to discover that my http://infodio.com site had been hacked. Basically, someone sitting pretty in Uzbekistan, or who knows in what beyond-reach-of-Western-law-enforcement’s-jurisdiction, uploaded a few files onto my server, hosted by Leaseweb in the Netherlands, to redirect all Google.com, .co.uk, .ca, and .com.au searches for related keywords to an online pharmacy selling Viagra, migraine medicine and another 35 or so products. Just to leave evidence, I recorded a short video.
Once I dealt with that, I came to learn that Escotet had taken half a page ad in a Spanish publication, to announce that he was suing El Confidencial, another media outlet (see below).
This is the sort of the stuff that one just can’t come up with, one for the #youcantmakethisshitup series.
Escotet seems to have learned nothing from that other Venezuelan concern that likes to go around threatening journalists, bloggers and the free press with lawsuits. And how’s that one turning up? Beyond the particular merits argued by the parties, one thing these Venezuelan thugs seem incapable of recording is that if you mess with the press -free press I mean, not the Venezuelan one- you scream for further probing / attention. And that’s exactly what Escotet, who managed quite the coup with Abanca’s acquisition, will get.
Members of the free press in Spain, not the ones fêted by Escotet to all expenses paid Caribbean trips, may discover that he lied through his teeth during Abanca’s bidding process. They may find, for instance, Escotet’s very own words about exchange rates (see below):
La concha de @jescotet… pic.twitter.com/fySY6JSUh2
— Alek Boyd (@alekboyd) March 17, 2015
So Mr Escotet, think’s Wall Street bankers are naïve because, erm, they use the same tricks he does to gain business. What a dishonest, two-bit thug. But what to make of his attack spread in Spain? Not long ago, in the context of claims that millions worth of bribes were paid to Diosdado Cabello by Derwick through Escotet’s bank, he put out another spread, in Venezuela, saying his banks operated in 15 countries, and complied with regulations in all jurisdictions. That’s crock of course, but notice how he claims now that Abanca, the bank he bought in Spain, has gone, in the space of less than a year, from failed regional bank to announce more earnings than giant BBVA (Spain second largest), «over 2 million customers and operations in 8 countries.» Bold the man is, we got to give him that.
Escotet’s beaf with El Confidencial is due to what he perceives to be bad PR. El Confidencial recently published that SEPBLAC, Spain’s Anti Money Laundering unit, is keenly investigating both him and his banks. If they follow down that rabit hole, they’ll find a pandora world of corruption behind what’s surely the wealthiest and most powerful group of operators in today’s Venezuela. Having a commanding position in Venezuela’s financial arena means that he has dealt with all the thugs, big and small, in the public and private sectors. In Venezuela he silences all but the most obstinate voices, of course, and not-yet-on-the-payroll journalists and independent media are promtly dealt with through the courts.
His clients at Derwick are also on the Slimification path: the latest is that they popped in Mexico -again #youcantmakethisshitup- as «investors» in some energy project. It takes some doing to launder all those ill gotten billions, though it would appear that time’s running out for the Boliburgeoisie.